‘Well, I guess that’s settled,’ Debbie laughs. ‘I suppose I’d better set another place at the table!’
I creep forward. My mind is buzzing with questions, but the kittens are crowding around the tomcat, all eager to be first in line for his attention. He patiently allows them to sniff him, but then his eyes look up to find mine and I can see they are smiling.
It is mid-afternoon, and the tomcat and I have left everyone eating turkey in the café, to head out into the empty streets of Stourton. We pad along the alleyway behind the café, down through the churchyard, and start to wander towards the square, our only witnesses the cawing crows on the chimney stacks. There is a chill in the air and, as the tomcat and I walk, we stick close to each other’s side, our footsteps naturally falling into a shared rhythm.
‘So, where have you been all this time?’ I ask, shyly. Glancing at the side of his face, I notice he’s gained a few scars since I last saw him.
‘Oh, just wandering,’ the tomcat replies, wrinkling his nose. ‘Life on the road isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,’ he says sagely.
‘I could have told you that,’ I joke.
‘And besides,’ he adds, ‘I missed the tuna mayonnaise.’
I stop walking, momentarily affronted, but then he catches my eye and I realize he is teasing me.
We turn the corner into the market square. The winter daylight is beginning to fade, low clouds scud across the sky and, above them, the pale crescent moon is already visible. All around us the square is decked out for Christmas. Colourful lights blink prettily in every window, and the tree in the middle of the square points vigorously upward, wreathed in white bulbs. Devoid of people and traffic, the square feels like it belongs to us, and us alone.
I wonder how it is possible for Stourton to look just as it did a year ago, as if nothing has changed. So much has changed for me in the last twelve months that I sometimes feel like a different cat from the one who arrived, rain-soaked and half-starved, after weeks in the open country. I feel sorry for the cat I was then, so desperate for someone to take pity on me and give me a home. And yet I am also proud of that cat. Pitiful she may have been, but were it not for her determination, I would not be here now.
The tomcat and I have made our way back to the cobbled street outside the café. The blinds are drawn, but I can see slivers of light around the edges of the window, and hear Debbie singing along to Christmas music inside. The tomcat is standing to one side on the doorstep, allowing me, chivalrously, to enter the café first. I nudge the door open and the warm atmosphere inside the café envelops us.
At a glance, I take in the crackling fire in the stove, our kittens dozing around the room, and the smiling faces of Debbie, Sophie and John as they read aloud jokes from their Christmas crackers. The tomcat stands beside me, gazing benignly at the scene before us, and I swell with pride to think of how much the café has changed since it became my home. But I also feel humble, because I know that the journey I have been on over the past year was not just about finding a home; it was about finding myself. I have been many different cats since losing Margery: a desperate stray, a self-sufficient alley-cat, a cherished pet, and a loving mother. I have been all of those cats, and they will always remain a part of me, because they have made me who I am.
The Real Cat Cafés
I first became aware of the existence of cat cafés in 2014. As a cat fanatic, I loved the idea of relaxing in a café full of laid-back felines. But I was also intrigued to imagine how a cat café comes into being, and what the background stories of the cats in such a place might be.
This was how the idea for Molly and the Cat Café was born. Although its inspiration comes from the real cat cafés, however, it is a work of fiction. When writing about Molly’s cat café, I sometimes had to allow the demands of plot and character to take precedence over factual accuracy. So it seems only fair to correct some misconceptions the book may have conveyed about the work done by the real cat cafés.
Japan is considered to be the spiritual home of the cat café: there are said to be nearly forty in Tokyo alone. In recent years, cat cafés have begun to appear around the world, springing up in Asia, North America, Australia and across Europe. In Britain there are currently cat cafés in London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Nottingham and Birmingham, with more planned for other parts of the country.
In addition to providing cat-loving humans with access to feline company, the cat cafés often have another purpose: to find permanent homes for their residents. Whereas Molly and her kittens are Debbie’s pets, many of the real cat cafés source their cats from local rescue shelters, and offer up the cats in their care for adoption.
The cats’ welfare is of the utmost importance for the cat cafés. Great care is taken to build a colony, usually of around a dozen cats, who will live peacefully alongside each other and whose temperaments suit the sociable atmosphere of a café. Precautions are taken to limit the number of customers allowed in the café at any one time in order to prevent the cats becoming stressed, and advance bookings are often necessary. Although some cat cafés provide outside space for their cats, others keep their cats indoors. I imagine the cats are unlikely to come and go as they please in the way that Molly does from her café.
Molly and the Cat Café is not intended to be a factually accurate account of a real cat café; it is the story of one cat and her search for a home. It is about the bond that forms between us and our feline companions; the strength of our love for them and, I would like to think, of their love for us. I believe it is the universal nature of this bond that drives the phenomenon of the cat café to worldwide success.
MD, June 2015
The Feline Fascination that inspired
Molly and the Cat Café
Whenever I catch sight of my cats observing me, beadily, from the top of a bookcase or through the banisters on the stairs, I can’t help feeling that they’re not so much watching me as gathering intelligence about me.
With their innate air of entitlement, my cats Nancy and Pip shamelessly exploit my family’s goodwill. My husband, children and I are at their beck and call, like servants trained to answer their every whim. On an average day, this not only involves feeding them on demand, but might also entail getting up to let them in through the front door because they can’t be bothered to use the cat flap, or sitting on the floor so as not to disturb them sprawled in blissful slumber across the sofa. Then there are the middle-of-the-night stumbles across the house to feed a noisily insistent Pip, or to open the airing cupboard door because Nancy has decided, for no apparent reason, that she simply must investigate its contents as a matter of urgency.
And I don’t think we’re alone. Any cat owner (or perhaps ‘cat own-ee’ might be more accurate, as we all know that you can never truly own a cat) would surely recognize the feeling that, in their home, it’s the cats who are in charge. There’s no doubt about it, cats are benign tyrants. And yet we humans indulge them, pandering to their demands and feeling privileged when they deign to show us any affection.
Deep down, I’ve always suspected that our cats know more about the world than they are letting on. I have spent many hours wondering what my cats get up to in their mysterious ‘other’ lives. Sometimes I get an insight, in the form of phone calls from concerned strangers telling us that Nancy has followed them home, or jumped into their car, or spent the evening at the local pub. And I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
There’s something beguiling about their self-assurance, and their determined independence. Who hasn’t watched their feline disappear purposefully down the garden path and wondered what secret life she is heading off to, and whether she is, in fact, running multiple households in the neighbourhood, all of whom might think she belongs to them? While we’ll never know for sure, it’s reassuring that it’s our home they choose to return to.
In spite of their tantalizing aloofness, we remain convinced that, deep down, our cats love us. How else to explain the way cats intuit
ively know when we need them? Be it by climbing into bed next to us when we’re feeling unwell (and nothing beats a purring, furry hot water bottle), or cheering us up at the end of a long day with a friendly head-bonk – there’s nothing more comforting than a cuddle with a cat. And though they might act like selfish ingrates most of the time, those occasions when they show us love make it all worthwhile.
When I decided I wanted to write a novel about a cat, I knew the heart of the story would lie in the relationship between the cat and her owner. It also seemed natural to tell the story from the cat’s point of view. I wanted to explore the idea that, just as we are attuned to our cats’ needs, they are attuned to ours. By telling the story from the cat’s perspective I could imagine what goes through a cat’s mind when she sees her owner’s life going awry.
My conviction that, underneath their cool exteriors, cats care as much about us as we do about them, underpins events in my book Molly and the Cat Café. When café owner Debbie takes pity on stray tabby Molly she knows nothing about Molly’s history. She has no idea that, like herself, Molly has experienced loss and hardship in her life. Although Molly comes to understand how much she and her owner have in common, this is something that Debbie can never know. Likewise Debbie will never know what lengths Molly goes to in order to help her, both personally and professionally. Debbie thought she had rescued Molly; she never imagined Molly would be the one to rescue her.
This book would not exist were it not for the help and support of many people. Thanks to my editor Victoria Hughes-Williams and all the team at Pan Macmillan for your enthusiasm and input at every stage of this process; to my agents Diane and Kate at Diane Banks Associates for your commitment and professionalism; and to Claire Morrison at Maison de Moggy in Edinburgh, for taking the time to tell me how a real cat café works.
Special thanks also to Debbie, for allowing me to base my (human) heroine on you.
Big gratitude and love to Suse and Louis for your patience, and to Phil for carrying more than your fair share of the domestic burden so that I could write. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Melissa Daley lives in Hertfordshire with her two cats, two children and one husband. One of her cats, Nancy, has a writing pedigree of her own and can be found on Facebook as Nancy Harpenden-Cat. Melissa was inspired by the Cotswolds town of Stow-on-the-Wold, which provides the backdrop for this novel, Molly and the Cat Café.
Read on for an extract of Molly’s festive adventures in Christmas at the Cat Café…
Chapter 1
The honey-coloured buildings that bordered the Market Square glowed in the dazzling autumn sunshine. I sat in the dappled shade of an elm tree, watching as tourists and shoppers meandered back and forth along the cobbled streets, soaking up the town’s atmosphere of prosperous gentility.
A cool breeze ruffled my fur and I inhaled deeply, savouring the scent of fallen leaves mingled with the aroma of meats and cheeses from the delicatessen behind me. The clock in a nearby church tower had just struck five and I knew that the bustling square would soon give way to a slower pace, as the shops closed for the day and the visitors made their way home. I yawned and jumped down from the wooden bench, taking my time to stretch languorously before setting off on my own homeward journey.
Keeping to the pavement, I trotted past the numerous tea shops, antiques dealers and gift stores that lined the square, then cut in front of the stone steps of the imposing Town Hall. The gaggles of grey-haired ladies in sturdy shoes barely noticed me weaving between them, preoccupied as they were with making the most of their last opportunity to buy, before climbing back into their waiting coaches. When I first arrived in the Cotswold town of Stourton-on-the-Hill as a homeless cat, the indifference of strangers would have upset me, but now I strode along, my tail held high, buoyed by the knowledge I, too, had a home to return to.
Careful to avoid the many alleyways that led off the square, which I knew to be the fiercely guarded territory of the town’s alley-cats, I turned onto a smart thoroughfare lined with estate agents’ offices and clothing boutiques. I deftly picked my way beneath gates and over fences, until I found myself in a narrow, cobbled parade of shops beside a church.
The parade serviced some of the town’s more mundane requirements, by means of a newsagent, bakery and hardware shop. But at the end of the parade, was a café. Like its immediate neighbours, the café was modest in size, but its golden stone walls exuded the same warmth as its grander counterparts on the square. Its front aspect was dominated by a curved bay window, framed by hanging baskets from which geraniums trailed, a little straggly, but still in flower after the long summer season. The only indicator that this café was different from any of the other eating establishments in Stourton was the chalkboard that stood outside its entrance, proclaiming the café ‘Open for coffee, cake and cuddles’. This was Molly’s, the Cotswolds’ only cat café, and it was my name printed in pink cursive script across the awning above the window.
Nosing through the cat flap in the café’s front door, I was immediately enveloped by the aura of tranquillity that only a room full of dozing cats can generate. The café had begun to empty after the teatime rush, but a few tables remained occupied, the customers chatting in hushed voices as they drank tea from china cups. The café’s decor was as familiar to me as my own tabby markings, from its beamed ceiling and warm pink walls (the same shade as the trail of paw prints that snaked across the flagstone floor, the result of my encounter with a paint tray when the café was being decorated), to the candy-striped oilcloths on the tables and the handwritten Specials board on the mantelpiece above the wood-burning stove.
As I made my way across the flagstones I glanced around the room, making a mental note of my kittens’ whereabouts. There were five of them – from my first and only litter – and their unexpected arrival just over a year earlier had, indirectly, brought about the café’s transformation from rundown sandwich shop to thriving cat café. I spotted Purdy first: she was draped proprietorially across the cat hammock that hung from the ceiling by the stairs, her white-tipped paws dangling over the edges of the hessian fabric. She had been the first-born of the litter and thus had assumed certain privileges over her siblings, which included laying claim to the highest napping spot in the room. As I picked out a path between the tables and chairs, I spotted her sister Maisie on the sisal cat tree that stood in the middle of the room. Maisie was the smallest and most timid of the kittens. She loved to observe her surroundings from the domed bed that protruded from the cat tree’s trunk, her watchful green eyes monitoring the café’s activity from her private refuge.
My destination was the sun-faded gingham cushion in the bay window. This had come to be known as ‘Molly’s cushion’, by the café’s staff and customers, because it had long been my favourite place to sit, allowing me to observe the goings-on both inside the café and on the street. I jumped up and turned in circles a few times, kneading its soft surface with my paws, enjoying the familiarity of its smell and feel. Around me, the last few customers pulled on their jackets, gathered their shopping bags and settled their bills. Abby and Bella, always an inseparable pair, had taken joint possession of one of the armchairs in front of the stone fireplace. They were curled up together, with their eyes closed, engaged in a reciprocal wash.
Debbie, our owner, stepped out from behind the wooden serving counter and moved methodically across the room, clearing tables. With the faintly weary air she habitually carried at the end of the working day, she went over to the table nearest the door, lifted her forearm to push the wispy blonde fringe out of her eyes, then began to stack the empty plates and cups onto the crook of her arm. Her blue eyes creased into a smile when Eddie – the only boy in my litter – jumped up onto the tablecloth and began to sniff hopefully at the half-empty milk jug. ‘Eddie, you naughty boy! Where are your table manners?’ Debbie chided him, giving him a gentle shove onto a chair. He gazed longingly after her as she – and the milk jug – disappeared back into the kit
chen, before he finally jumped down and wandered disappointedly away.
A flurry of movement outside the window caught my attention. A song thrush was bouncing along the guttering on the buildings opposite, chirping persistently in a shrill warning call that announced the presence of a cat nearby. I craned closer to the window to scan the street and quickly spotted a large black-and-white cat striding along the cobbles. Even at a distance, the cat’s rangy frame and confident gait were instantly recognizable: this was Jasper, the father of my kittens. Before he reached the café he turned a corner and vanished out of sight. I knew he would be heading to the alleyway that ran along the rear of the parade, where he always went to wait for the café’s closing time.
The warmth of the low sun, intensified by the windowpane, began to take its soporific hold on me. I would meet Jasper outside later, for our customary evening walk, but first I felt myself succumbing to the irresistible urge to nap. I lay down on my cushion and tucked my paws neatly beneath my body, purring lethargically as a feeling of peaceful contentment spread through me. I was comfortable, I was well fed and I was surrounded by the people and cats I loved. Life was good, and as my head began to nod gently on the gingham cushion, I could see no reason why it would not stay like this forever.
Chapter 2
I had just started to doze off when the brass bell above the café door tinkled. My ears flickered drowsily, but it took a shriek of surprise from behind the counter to jolt me back to full consciousness.
‘Oh, my God, Linda!’
Startled, I lifted my head to see Debbie dash across the now-empty café to greet a woman standing on the doormat. I knew immediately that the woman was not a regular Molly’s customer. She was wearing a faux-fur gilet, tight white jeans and high-heeled leather boots, and her blonde hair fell in bouncy layers around a face that was half-obscured by a pair of giant sunglasses. As Debbie reached her, the woman pushed the glasses onto the top of her head and smiled. ‘I was just passing and thought I’d pop in. It’s about time I checked out the famous Cat Café,’ she said, wrapping Debbie in a tight embrace.
Molly and the Cat Cafe Page 20
